Five With One Blow

I've had a rather rough streak with critters of late.

A week and a half ago I went to turn the dog out for one last tinkle before bedtime and there was a raccoon giving us the hairy eyeball through the glass of the front door.

The dog went nuts and my varmint pistolero was in the gun safe.

In all of the confusion Mr. Raccoon walked.

Phil the groundhog has excavated a magnificent den in my septic mound and heretofore escaped eviction, capture and death.

I have bunnies in the garden.

And now mice.

Yesterday I had to run to town with my grocery list: 6 gallons of diesel, jar of jam, bag of ice and a bottle of whiskey.

I know - it's an eclectic shopping list for sure.

In any event I cranked over the pick-up and made ready to leave when I realized I had forgotten the grocery tote. Dismounting, I ran to the house to fetch the tote and when I returned to the idling truck out from the bottom of the engine compartment dropped a mama mouse along with four baby mice.
She had apparently been using some part of my Chevy as a nursery.

So here was mama mouse scurrying about the driveway with four baby mice clamped onto her teats.

If the notion of the potential damage that mice can do to your vehicle wasn't so serious - watching the cluster of mice scramble-about would be positively funny.

They disappeared from view.

And I took the truck to town.

Walking back to the house following my shopping excursion I wondered how mama mouse was going to fare having been so rudely evicted from her home.

I didn't have to wonder for very long.

There on the gravel driveway was the entire family.

Flat as a mouse pancake.

Clean-up was easy.